I was born into a family without religion, which is to say that my family originally had too much religion and my parents decided to end the fighting it caused by getting rid of it entirely. In my grandparents’ era, both sides had split into bitter feuds over religion and the family was left fractured and broken, with brothers refusing to speak for decades over which brand of Christianity held the highest truths, and cousins screaming at one another they would surely rot in Hell over nothing more than the way they said their prayers.
And so it horrified my mother when I started going to church, on my own, at 9. I had gone once with a friend after a sleep over, and I loved it so much that I begged my parents to let me go again. I was ridiculed, yelled at and resented for it, but still I walked there by myself every week. I arranged for my own baptism (Lutheran, which, for the record, is very different here in California than anything I’ve ever heard on Prairie Home Companion) and I continued on, studying and memorizing the catechism, and then made it through another two hard years of work to get confirmed. I read the Bible cover to cover and debated the pastor whenever he would let me (I had a bad habit of asking awkward questions that he wasn’t prepared to answer. Later I would find out he had slept with most of the parish, and, to this day, I feel a twinge of sick, twisted jealousy that I was one of the few he didn’t take advantage of.) I joined the choir and participated in the Christmas pageant, all to the disgust of my parents, who, to their credit, came to every concert and appearance, even as they muttered under their breath about the evils of organized religion.
As a teenager, I started to question a lot about Christianity. It seemed to me that the image of God I was being taught seemed angrier and less loving than I imagined he should be. I had hard questions about a woman’s place in the world, and about the whole killing people righteously bits that were strewn through the Old and New Testaments. I imagine that in the hands of a skilled pastor (or one who could take his mind off diddling for a few moments,) my life may have turned out differently, but I eventually strayed from the Church at the ripe old age of 15, and sought out other answers to the questions that never seemed to run out.
In my search, I read books, talked to friends, attended countless temples, services and meetings, and finally stumbled upon Wicca (in the mid-eighties, when information was hard to find) and that was the beginning of my path through paganism – a path that continues today. However, because of my early foundation in Christianity, I’ve always felt kindred to Christians – sure, some would have liked to see me drawn and quartered with a rusty butter knife for my beliefs, but I always figured we had a lot of the same general ideas about the world: be good to each other, look out for each other, stop judging one another, and try to remember that we’re here to care for one another as we all struggle through what is often a very difficult life. In fact, I’ve always held tightly to the elephant model of religion, where we’ve each got a hold of a different part, but the elephant is so big that we can’t see we’re all talking about the same creature. You’ve got a trunk and I’ve got a tail, but we’re still holding tight to the same god(s.)
Even after I officially left the church, I continued to attend many times a year, because my grandmother was the choir master/organist for her parish, and I would go whenever I visited her. I’ve always loved the singing, and the sermons, which, when separated from the trappings of religion, are just as true for a pagan as they are for a christian (again, here I’ve benefited from attending services in the Bay Area, where they don’t openly encourage wholesale slaughter or voting Republican.) I love the community, and the joy of being with a group of people who all believe in something greater than themselves, even if it doesn’t make any logical, scientific sense (and, no, it doesn’t have to conflict with being a scientist, but that’s a post for another day.)
So I was looking forward to attending Easter services yesterday – I even wore a skirt and a respectable sweater. But as I sat in the pew, singing some of my favorite songs with the congregation to celebrate the resurrection of the Son, (which is really not that much different from my celebration of the rebirth of the sun,) I suddenly felt out of place. Horribly out of place. Suddenly I wanted to run away, which confused me, because I didn’t remember getting any internal “church is bad” memos. My feet wanted to run, my heart wanted to run, and my brain was left holding the “but I thought we were having a good time” bag.
I stuck it out through the entire service, about an hour and a half, and tried to participate as best I could, even though my stomach was sure that it was the end of the world. After a life of belonging, I suddenly had the very distinct feeling that these were not my people, and this was not my place – as if my polarity had shifted overnight and I no longer fit in. I kept hoping that horrible feeling would go away, that it was just a result of the malaise I’d been feeling for months…but it’s gotten stronger the more I’ve been thinking about it, and it’s left me feeling like someone who’s lost their home.
More than that, I feel as if I’ve lost my soul. It’s not in the hands of some cosmic police officer or slipping down towards the fires of endless torment – it’s just lost, gone missing. I’d put up “Lost Soul – please return to owner” flyers if I knew where to look. Perhaps my soul is exactly where it should be, and I’m the one who’s lost. There’s an empty space where part of me used to be, like a door closed on the past and I can’t ever get back in, and it frustrates me because I can’t work out why it happened today. Why not at 15? Why not when I left the church? Why not years ago when I became poly? The first time I whipped a man just to make him come? The exquisite moment last year when I fell in love with a woman and made ecstatic love to her over and over in a Washington hotel room? When I saw my life fall apart last summer and noticed that no god bothered to raise so much as a little pinkie finger to help as I lay on the floor screaming out desperate prayers to an empty universe?
Why am I different today when I wasn’t different any of those other times? When did the clock start ticking on my membership, and why didn’t I feel it change?
Today I’m an outsider, but not because anyone says I am. There’s always been someone around to tell me I didn’t fit in, but I’ve never felt it like this. Today is different because today I’m the one saying it.
And it hurts like dying without being dead, like I’m a shell without a middle. I can’t go back, and I don’t know where to go forward because everything is suddenly different. Even “here” has changed, so I can’t even work out how to stand still. I’m sitting here with my arms wrapped around my belly, trying to keep the rest of me from falling out, too, wondering how much more can change before I don’t even recognize myself.
Caterpillar: Who… are… you?
Alice: Why, I hardly know, sir. I’ve changed so much since this morning, you see…
Caterpillar: No, I do not C, explain yourself.
Alice: I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, you see, because I’m not myself, you know.
Caterpillar: I do not know.
Alice: I can’t put it any more clearly, sir, because it isn’t clear to me.–Alice In Wonderland
I think it’s wonderful that you choose to share yourself so much with us. You won’t admit to being a ‘writer’ but you express yourself so well, so clearly and accessibly, thank you.
When we talked about this last night, I described that feeling as suddenly feeling like your inner polarity doesn’t match up with what’s going on outside you. I can remember feeling panicked, out of place, wanting to run.
You wonder about the timing, why is it happening now and not at some more obvious point in the past year. Hell, I don’t know either. Life changes don’t seem to follow a predictable path, certainly my path isn’t anything like yours, or the next person’s. I also think life changes aren’t smooth, they don’t follow a consistent pace.. maybe they’re more like earthquakes.. huge, lurching adjustments made after the pressure between two points builds up to the breaking point.
At any rate, you’re doing as well as any of us in handling your life changes. Don’t get hung up on thinking you should be handling it better, be more smooth or whatever. Don’t let anyone else convince you of that either. It is what it is and you have to take each event as it happens, as best you can. And, Love? You’ve been handling everything really really well, as hard as I know that is for you to believe. I have faith in you, you’ll find your way, at whatever pace is right for you.
I get it. ((hugs))
I’ve had this strange sensation over the last six months, this out-of-the-deep-blue inspiration to attend a church. At first I couldn’t really tell why; I just felt like I needed to go and sit in the back pew of a Catholic church, listen to the hymns and feel at home. I realized recently that that desire was not much more than my subconscious wanting/needing to feel a part of something again, to feel accepted again. My wife and I are both wholly accepted by our Buddhist community and by our friends and even workplaces, but ever since coming out to *every*one and being ostracized by my family, this overwhelming and terrible need to feel like one of them again consumed me. I went into a couple churches and sat there and listened, but even in pretending to fit in I just felt isolated; alien even. It’s not at all the same as what you’re going through, but I did get a large enough taste of what losing that old homeness is like. I’m happier than ever where I am, but there is, at least for now, still a sense of loss for the security I once had as a Christian child.
Lord. Talking way too much on your blog is beginning to become a habit of mine. Sorry. I do want to say that it’s possible this might be a sort of rebirth for you; with all the loss and the closing of previous chapters probably comes the opportunity for growth and renewal. Maybe this emptiness is just the open grounds for discovery of both the old and the new you. In which case, congratulations.